Image of young people in the media

[ukyp]

Campaign proposal

To improve the image of young people through the media and other community projects

Purpose of campaign

Image of young people is something very important. We have been targeted by the media and sometimes used as the worst example of young people in Europe. We need to ensure that work that goes on across the UK which is positive is highlighted, be it through national or local media so that young people can be taken seriously and the ignorance surrounding young people in today’s society is overcome. Relations between young people and different industries (e.g. the police), need to be improved and this can only occur if young people feel they have a fair deal and treated seriously. It is unfair to generalise about the majority of young people using the example of the minority.

Read more about this campaign

Discuss

· What do you think of this campaign idea?
· Is this issue important to you?
· Is the campaign realistic and achievable?
· What challenges would this campaign face?
· How could we make this campaign successful?

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[M-lo]

I fully support this proposal.

Surveys have been done into this issue by groups as diverse as UK Youth, the British Youth Council, Sheffield UK Youth Parliament, Frontier Youth Trust, The Prince's Trust, Barnardo's etc.

From this data, it is apparant that young people have an image problem in the UK.

96.2% feel that it's important for young people to be positively represented in the media (UK Youth), yet 98% of young people "feel that media, always, often or sometimes represents them as anti-social", while "More then 80% of the young people surveyed thought that the way they are represented in the media leads to older people respecting them less" (British Youth Council)

In a survey by Frontier Youth Trust, 61% of respondents said their opinions of young people are fuelled by the media, and the Prince's Trust found that 3/4 feel scared when they see a hooded youth.

Many of these organisations and more have banded together to organise a National Youth Week this year, similar to that of Australia (which is an unbridled success), to celebrate the positive contributions of young people. It would be senseless for the UK Youth Parliament to miss out on this.

This is not simply an issue of us wanting better PR. It is tearing communities apart. Older generations now fear the young because all they see of young people is the negative media image. Youths in many areas are suspicious of older people- and for what? These divisions are caused in many cases by an irrational of youths. It has even entered our vocabulary- where once 'youth' conjured up positive images, it now brings to mind a drunken, knife-wielding, hoodie.

This is an issue that strikes at the very heart of what UK Youth Parliament is about. We were elected to give young people a voice- yet the only voice of youth many hear is the Sun's daily commentary of Broken Britain.

It is for these reasons that I wholeheartedly support this campaign proposal.

[Bex]

I fully support this proposal
I think that young people are grouped into that small minority that do drugs , have sex and commit crimes and the teenagers doing good in society are overlooked to often. This issue is important to me as even doing nothing teenagers shopping with friends are followed and spyed on just incase and are assumed to being doing something wrong .
I feel that this is a realistic and acheivable campaign although it may face challenges such as press attention as they only ever want to point the bad in people.

[Liam Hannan]

so...

the gist of this "national" campaign is

"let's do more locally!"

Am I the only one seeing the irony there?

[joshl1972]

I'm fully on board with this. Our UKYP branch in Coventry is currently running something similar called "Goodie in a Hoodie", and our aim is to improve YPs image in the media. So far it's been pretty successful, and we've had lots of great events for YP to participate in.
I'm voting for this one!

[jake.B]

Well I agree with the media to a certain degree. Our generation is bad, not all. But a lot are bad. Although when does saying there all bad and thugs in every newspaper and on t.v. help to sort the problem out?

[Anonymous]

How would this be achieved?

[xvictoriax]

i'm actually doing this myself in my own county and to be honest if you cared about the problem you would do the same and talk to newspapers etc and get them to publicise what young people do?

[Anonymous]

Originally Posted by xvictoriax

i'm actually doing this myself in my own county and to be honest if you cared about the problem you would do the same and talk to newspapers etc and get them to publicise what young people do?

Wouldn't that require young people to do good things though?

[xvictoriax]

From what I have seen the minority spoilt for the majority and the good things young people do are often hidden..therefore bringing these to the attention of others will help the portrayal of young people.